


Diplomatic Relations

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2019-08-22 05:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16592087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: The Fleurets are at last allowed to go where they please. Their first stop? Of course, Luna insists it be Insomnia. Of course, these new freedoms must be squandered suffering the antics of the brat Prince of Lucis. Ravus is determined to rise to any challenge Noctis might throw at him. Even ones of the heart. [prompted series of interconnected shorts]





	1. Reunion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aithilin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/gifts).



“Brother…”

“Sister.”

“I won’t ask you to smile if you will at least attempt a _neutral_ expression.”

“I _am_ being neutral.”

“You’re scowling. You look like we’re about to go to war again.”

_We just as well might be._

As of yet, he was not entirely convinced that war resuming _wasn’t_ still in the realm of possibility. If not from him firing the first shot between King Regis’s eyes, then certainly by the King’s hand stabbing them in the back. Again.

Ravus did not share his sister’s everlasting – and, oftentimes, ever so _vexing_ – capacity for forgiveness. Nor her boundless trust in the unknowable patterns of the universe that only she would ever know.

Which was exactly why they were _not_ meeting with King Regis on this momentous day. Why they were not trusting him to keep his composure when forced to shake hands with the man who left his whole family for dead. Why Luna was a mandatory chaperone for the former Prince of Tenebrae, and why she was impressed upon to do all the talking.

Ravus, being the (rightly) cynical sibling he was, being the experienced commander he was, being the generally, jilted-too-many-times type of person he was, did not take any chances. And even if he did, he _hoped_ – _gods_ , he _hoped_ – that the mere idea of what Niflheim had made him into, his very face forcing him to remember what he did, would have shamed the King enough to delay their meeting by his own volition.

Sweet vindication though that may have been, Ravus didn’t give him the chance. Instead, he arranged for them to be greeted by the lesser of the two Lucian evils. A taste-test, as it were. Of just desserts at the “benevolent” King’s tainted table.

He was not looking forward to it. Because he still _could not stand_ the Crown Prince of Lucis.

“Hey Rav.”

“Brat.”

Even though he had every reason to be pleased with the circumstances of the reunion, even though he was hyper-aware of how vital the show of civility between Tenebrae’s and Lucis’s leaders was for his people – for _all_ people – even though he had requested this – without ever saying names, hidden under all of the coded, political jargon; through vague threats and not so vague revile for _certain_ , “esteemed” parties of the Lucian royal family – even though this was all a sign of better times ahead… he still had to pretend Noctis was not the _worst_ representative of royalty he’d ever seen.

As if the betrayal which influenced their parting wasn’t a bitter enough pill to keep swallowing – day after day, year after year choking down the Empire’s prescription when there had been nothing wrong with Tenebrae for them to “fix” – the Prince’s flippant regard for his title and all of its responsibilities had always been a point of acute aggravation, needling into Ravus’s brain.

He was still a child. He hadn’t seen him in over ten years, and he was still a child. How had evolution failed so miserably in one of the world’s most influential figureheads?

He was unruly in his welcome, not unlike a dog jumping at its master upon his return, embracing Luna with zero regard for formalities _or_ personal space, for that matter. ( _What if she didn’t like being touched, huh? What if she wasn’t comfortable hugging you after ten-odd years? Well? What then?_ ) He was just as spoiled as the day they met, expecting things to happen _his_ way. Luna would still love him after all this time, he could hug her because _he_ wanted to, and he could call the two of them by his moronic little nicknames like they were still children forced to get along because their parents said so, rather than address them as members of the most storied line of nobility in Tenebrae’s history.

And he still mumbled – he lacked confidence in his own words; how encouraging – still avoided direct eye contact – a sign of cowardice – still fidgeted and fumbled his way through welcoming them to Insomnia and reciting the necessary appreciation for Niflheim’s mercy in the tone of stilted memorization. Ravus half-expected to find scribbled lines of ink on his palm for him to defer to.

“I’ll, um… I mean…” Noctis paused at present – Ravus was waiting for him to look at his hands for those stowaway lines of his – before he remembered what he was _supposed_ to say. “Rooms have been prepared for you. Our staff will see to your luggage and I’ll show you to them now. The rooms! Not the staff.”

_Ignoramus._

Luna gave him a Look once Noctis’s back was turned that suggested she somehow heard that unvoiced insult. But he did as she bid, and he forced his face into a façade of indifference as they were shown to their rooms _(“not the staff,”_ _of course not, you utter buffoon_ ).

Luna made herself at home in a spacious suite adjacent to Ravus’s own. Which, though, identical, he found little in the ways of comfort, as she did. But then, in her mind, she was vacationing with old friends, not sleeping in the house of her enemy.

“It’s not Fenestala Manor or anything,” Noctis said, lingering by the doorway like he couldn’t wait to get out of there. Ravus wished he would. “But it’ll have to do.”

Ravus snorted. _Impudent brat_. “That it will. If anything, it will only serve to make our return to Fenestala that much more of a relief.”

A small grunt from Noctis was his only response. A shame. Ravus would need to try harder. But when he turned to Noctis to try and get a rise out of him – if their displeasure for each other was to be publicized, he wanted a Caelum to be the one to blame – Noctis looked oddly… _serene_. He was _smiling_ at him, the smug little twit.

Ravus crossed his arms over his chest, surprised by the steadiness in Noctis’s stare, weighing him from across the room. As if he had anything to prove to such an ingrate of Lucian impropriety.

“If you do not cease with your staring, I may be inclined to consider it suspicious. By all means, give me a reason to resume hostilities between Tenebrae and Lucis.”

He’d _relish_ it this time. But Noctis merely shook his head, unbothered by the barbed speech.

“Just missed you,” he said. “Haven’t changed a bit, Ravus.”

And he walked away. He _walked away_. He left Ravus standing there, baffled, without the last word… and he thought he could get away with that? He had another thing coming.

…Still. Ravus actually didn’t regret “requesting” Noctis to be the one to settle them in Insomnia. Because if he hadn’t changed, neither had Noctis. And that childish antagonism was picking up right where they left off. Harkening back to a simpler time, a more innocent one, where his biggest concern was one-upping the Crown Prince just to impress anyone who was watching, eight-year-old enemy included.

He wasn’t eight-years-old anymore, and not as dumb as he might pretend. Though Ravus wasn’t exactly expecting a challenge, this might prove to be a decent distraction. He needed to do _something_ to keep himself from enacting bloody vengeance on the King.

Competing with his son for to prove his superiority would just have to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr post!](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/179917613782/fluff-prompt-ravusnoct-and-a-reunion)
> 
> This will be a little collection of ravnoct shorts likely set in a chronological order of "I hate your guts" to "I heart your guts." Mostly all prompted by Aithilin and mostly warm, winter-themed feelings!


	2. Tis the Season

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Must you wear that?"

“Must you wear that?”

“I must.” Noctis crossed his arms, approximating an expression of total seriousness with that ridiculous thing on his head. “And _you_ must, too.”

Ravus’s eye twitched, violently opposed to the idea. “Absolutely not.”

“Absolutely yes.”

As if it wasn’t degrading enough that he must be subjected to the King’s hospitality in lieu of affording a retreat worthy of his own status to stay in the city. As if it wasn’t agonizing enough being trapped under the merciless positivity of his bumbling son, due in part to Ravus’s very own stubbornness in refusing as much contact with King Regis as was diplomatically possible. As if his entire existence within the walls of Insomnia wasn’t doomed to be mortifying and discomfiting enough already without Noctis insisting he must wear… _that_.

That… _ludicrous, humiliating,_ absolute _abomination_ of seasonal headwear which Noctis wore as proudly as any crown more appropriate for his position.

The horns were monstrously cheap things, made from tacky, plush fabric and plastic accents; as tasteless and sloppy as a child’s kindergarten craft.  Mimicking the tall, warped antlers of the anak stags of Leide, they reached nearly as high as the top of a doorway – and Ravus not-so-secretly hoped for the Crown Prince to make an even bigger fool of himself by getting stuck in one. They were trimmed and trapped in the standard, holiday colors most popular across Lucis: gold baubles; red-and-white-striped ribbons; waxy, green bunches of holly; silver strings of bells that trilled with every turn of the Prince’s head.

Ostentatious, over-the-top, and so unlike the slick, stylish Insomnian glamor Ravus saw throughout the city and assumed was the trend set forth by the royal family themselves. Was this horrendous accessory of holiday gaudiness a part of some mockery conspired against his character? No, there was no secret about it. There was nothing subtle about this effort to blatantly demean the dethroned Prince of Tenebrae.

Noctis was (by some miracle) not dense enough for Ravus’s obvious displeasure to go unnoticed. Unfortunately, he had a sturdier spine than Ravus gave him credit for, and Noctis would not bend to his ire.

“All you have to do is stand there,” Noctis said. “I’ll do all the talking. But showing people you’re willing to take at least a little part in our culture might go a long way with public approval. It’s just a hat, Ravus.”

_Just_ a hat, he said. Just have to stand there and suffer the demise of his own self-image for the sake of a few “humanizing candids” – to put it in the words of the Prince’s baseborn photographer friend. Just have to be made the laughing stock of the whole Niflheim military, just have to lose his hard-fought for fear amidst the ranks, the sharpest weapon he had to keep himself and his sister safe, pricking the Empire’s iron fist when it tried to close too tight.

“We’re in Lucis now, brother,” Luna told him later, affixing her own absurd accoutrements into her hair. “The Empire holds no sway over us, anymore. You’re allowed to enjoy yourself.”

And just _what_ about this whole event should he find enjoyable? Whether he had a reputation to uphold or not, whether he attended as Prince of Tenebrae or as High Commander of the Niflheim army, a children’s charity drive was not his idea of “fun.”

Being slobbered over by squealing, toothless brats was not something he considered enjoyable. Being prodded and pointed at, and just generally being reduced to a toddler’s totem pole to climb on, was not his preferred venue for a “good time.”

But for some Astrals-forsaken reason, he was _obligated_ to attend, as well as abide by the obscenely awful dress code. While his designated choice of headwear wasn’t _quite_ as extravagantly appalling as Noctis’s, it was no less uncomfortable – and certainly no less embarrassing. Wearing a fur-trimmed, tapered blue cap, sequined in snowflakes and weighted with a fluffy, white pom-pom at the end, the only way Ravus could feel more ridiculous was if he marched naked through the freezing streets of Gralea in the middle of the day.

Luna asked him to smile a whole of once throughout the entire gathering, and the look he must have given her, demanded that be the _last time_ she asked. The ground floor ballroom of the Citadel was a writhing mess of excitable children and harried parents, darting from one decoration to one colorful wrapped package to another.

The toy drive was apparently an annual thing, an altruistic tradition that Lucis had upheld for various generations. Noctis had been in charge of it since he’d come of age, and he took to it very seriously – though his comical attire begged to differ. While Noctis engaged with his common guests, Ravus kept to his corner of limited interaction, only allowing himself to be subjected to socialization when Argentum gathered them together for group shots commemorating the event. At least the pictures would prove his attendance, and he couldn’t be accused of insulting Tenebrae’s staunchest ally by refusing to show up.

“Come on, it’s not so bad. Where’s your holiday spirit?”

Ravus grit his teeth and pretended Noctis wasn’t there. He didn’t know what game he was playing at by trying to get a rise out of him in a public venue full of easily tear-prone children, but he wasn’t going to fall for it. He’d been doing well enough all night, he just had to make it through these last few hours without causing a homicidal incident. But Noctis insisted on standing right on his last nerve.

“The hat looks cute on you. Matches your eyes.”

Ravus gave him a withering look, twitching against the unperturbed smile on Noctis’s face. He looked just as giddy as any one of the little terrors scrambling around the ballroom, in his festive antlers and casual, light Lucian blacks. He presented Ravus with a tall glass of a milky white drink.

“It’s eggnog. The real stuff,” he added, in an informant’s whisper. “Might help.”

“I require no aid, liquid or otherwise, to survive a bunch of children.”

“Good. Then, you can just enjoy the drink as it is.”

Ravus nearly flinched away into a defensive battle stance when Noctis suddenly took his hand and forced his fingers around the stem of the glass. As if his reputation wasn’t endangered enough without dumping glass and eggnog on the Crown Prince of Lucis; that would have been a media disaster. Noctis either didn’t notice, or didn’t care about the tension in Ravus’s arm. He wasn’t sure which would have annoyed him more.

“You came to Lucis at the height of the holiday season, Ravus,” Noctis said. “We’re supposed to be celebrating. And with the world finally free from the Empire, we have a lot to be thankful for.”

He clinked his glass against Ravus’s to punctuate the point. He raised it to his lips, but didn’t drink, instead staring at Ravus, expectantly, switching an insistent glance between his face and the drink in his hand. Distantly, Ravus was sure he heard Argentum’s camera clicking. He couldn’t risk the photographic evidence of his discrimination.

Ravus sighed and lifted his glass in a half-hearted toast, matching Noctis as they sipped it down. Definitely the hard stuff, a thick, sweet burn immediately warming Ravus to the core. It did help, though he wasn’t about to admit it. Noctis licked a strip of eggnog from his upper lip.

“Even if you’re not, we’re happy to have you here, Ravus,” he said. “You’re welcome to join us, whenever you’re ready.”

With that, Noctis headed back into the throng of children, smile split open in an amiable grin. Which perplexed Ravus, as much as his offer of welcome had. It was becoming increasingly difficult to convince himself that Noctis was being disingenuous. That he was just putting on the show which princes were expected to play for the masses, just doing his part to ensure peace for his people.

Though it had seemed to Ravus like Noctis couldn’t care less for his position, it was becoming harder and harder to believe that he didn’t care about his _people_. Ravus watched him with the kids, watched him kneel down to their level like he was no more or less than them, like he wasn’t expected to stand higher above them on the altar of his lofty name. He didn’t act like a prince – never had – and that had always been a massive point of contention for Ravus.

But – and maybe this was the eggnog, consistently sipped until it was all gone, that was clouding his better judgment – looking at him among the common folk, the kids, the single moms and dads and poor couples dressed in the best they could find in closets of scraps, listening to him welcome each and every one of them to a palace of luxury that would forever exceed their own income…

Listening to him welcome _him_ , as if he were equal to the commoners he addressed now, as if he was equal to Noctis himself… He should have found that insulting. He _knew_ that he was better than Lucis – his whole country deserved better than Lucis – better than King Regis and his betrayal when the Empire descended. Noctis didn’t know how spoiled he was, getting to grow up with a parent, any parent, instead of being raised among robots, being hammered into a steel soldier under the Emperor’s idea of fatherhood.

Perhaps, he had forgotten what it really meant to lead a whole country. He led magitek, not people. He took care of wounded captains, not ailing mothers and their children. He’d done everything on his own, in the name of House Fleuret, in honor of his last remaining family, to protect Lunafreya… Perhaps, he had forgotten what it looked like to have an ally.

With Noctis laughing among the children of Lucis, antlers jingling with holiday cheer, and catching Ravus’s eye over the shoulders of every child, he thought, for a terrifying, nauseating moment, that maybe he’d been wrong about Noctis, after all…

He needed more eggnog.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr!](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/180838226787/ravnoct-must-you-wear-that) for as long as it lasts ^_^;


	3. Grin & Bear It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ravus descended the stone steps of the Citadel with an eagerness to validate his annoyance. What he ended up getting instead was an infuriatingly humbling experience.

He needed to figure this out.

He needed to understand what had changed, make sense of _why_ it did in the first place.

He needed to _fix_ it. Because the only way he could fathom his descent from abhorring Prince Noctis to even vaguely appreciating him, was if something inside himself had fundamentally broken.

Perhaps it was an effect of this damnable “holiday cheer” which seemed to infect Insomnia like a contagion. Perhaps he’d been too far from home for too long and, without his volition, was assimilating into the Lucian hive mind by proximity.

Or perhaps it was just the ache in his arm this morning that was making it hard to think straight. Maybe it was just that the persistent throbbing was muddling his higher brain functions, and mistaking his irritation over Noctis with endearment.

Ravus pressed his hand against his shoulder, where muscle fused to metal. He glared out his window as he braced himself for the next pain-pulse. He was used to it. This happened often on cold days. And it was always a cold day in Gralea. The blizzard wailing between the towers of Insomnia this morning was a poor imitation of the squalls which screeched through the Imperial capital as commonly as clouds of breath.

He didn’t remember if his arm had ever hurt so much when it was recovering from the fires which razed his home to the ground. But then, everything had hurt since his mother had died. So little time had been spent in Tenebrae before he marched off to serve the Imperial army. Whether or not he remembered if the aches had started in Niflheim or not, it was still the Empire he had to thank for them.

He couldn’t remember a time where it had snowed in Tenebrae. His kingdom was one of perpetual springtime, always lush and green and full of flowers. The crossover from the dulcet temperatures of Tenebrae, to the frigid composure of Niflheim had been a hard one. Fitting, Ravus always thought. Being forced to grow up too fast was never supposed to be easy, anyway…

Wonderful. Lucis was making him miserable, Prince Noctis was making him misinterpret how he was supposed to feel about him, and now winter was making him maudlin. Hard to feel the festive spirit when he was cooped up in his room with nothing but his thoughts and an old, phantom pain to fuel them.

Ravus got to his feet and left the guest suite, though he wasn’t sure where he was going. Traipsing around the city in the blustering snow almost sounded preferable to wandering the halls of the Citadel. He was in no mood to gamble with his privacy around nosy Lucian servants and the shrewd stares of Crownsguard security. But if he stayed in his room, he’d wind up pacing it like a caged coeurl. Besides, maybe a little exercise would do something to alleviate the soreness – it wouldn’t, but he needed _some_ sort of excuse to coach himself out the door.

Outside his room, the hallowed halls of the Lucian king soared above him, black granite gilded with veins of gold. It was darker than he was used to, but also warmer. Not by much – these massive buildings were always plagued with their drafts, too much surface area to narrow down every breach in the hull – but his fingers didn’t feel quite as clammy as they did when ferrying reports around Zegnautus Keep.

And it wasn’t as quiet as a crypt, either. Even if Ravus didn’t see people to match the voices, he heard activity behind the walls wherever he went. Maids busying about in bedrooms, guards marching up and down the halls, secretaries and chamberlains on calls in their offices. For a palace built on the bones of dead kings, the Citadel was full of life.

It was how he was directed to the lower levels, guided by concealed gossip muffled through the walls that said the Crown Prince was “in a mood.” That he was “downstairs training like he has something to prove.” Some servants were more concerned than others – some were so malicious in their gossip that Ravus would have had them gutted from the roster within minutes. But this wasn’t his house; these weren’t his people.

And while Noctis wasn’t his friend, not by any means, Ravus still felt drawn to the training barracks below the Citadel, nevertheless. It wasn’t out of concern – of course it wasn’t. It was merely curiosity, and a need to see the Prince at his worst. Ravus needed to prove to himself that he had no reason to admire him. He needed to find the worst flaws in him again to remember why he was disgusted by his very existence.

Ravus descended the stone steps of the Citadel with an eagerness to validate his annoyance. What he ended up getting instead was an infuriatingly humbling experience.

Prince Noctis was battering away at a straw dummy, a thin veil of sweat glittering across his cheekbones, teeth bared like an enraged animal. His eyes were dark with weary rings of restlessness, and there was an odd, discordant rhythm to his movements. Ravus had never seen the prince fight, but he knew how it was supposed to be done.

Ravus crossed his arms – an angry twinge racing up his prosthetic that he vehemently ignored – and watched, unnoticed. It took him a while before he realized what was wrong. Noctis wasn’t using his dominant hand, nor his dominant foot to step into his stances. In fact, it looked like he was limping through the motions. As if each strike of steel through straw was hurting him somehow.

One quick flurry of attacks, and Noctis finally ceased his assault, sending his weapon back into the armiger. His hand immediately pressed against the small of his back, wincing and breathing hard as he walked a circle to alleviate some pain Ravus couldn’t identify. As he pivoted around in his cooldown circuit, Noctis finally noticed him standing there, and he startled.

“Shit, Six! When the hell did you get there?”

“Must you act so surprised?” Ravus asked, archly. “You act as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Might as well be,” Noctis chuckled, an edge of bitterness in his voice.

Ravus didn’t have time to challenge his words. Noctis surrendered his irritation on a hard huff of breath, then collapsed into an exhausted, cross-legged pile on the ground. He waved at the dummy.

“Have a go if you want. I’m done.”

Ravus’s hands stiffened against his arms. _Best not,_ his better instincts warned him, in a steady staccato of pain climbing up his arm. But then he was goaded by a vision of Noctis sneering at him for his weakness, and Ravus strode into the arena. It wasn’t as if he relied on his prosthetic for wielding a sword, anyway.

There was an array of blunted weapons arranged on a rack at the edge of the field. Something different for every trainee’s particular style. Ravus found a rapier to suit his preferences, then faced the abused dummy. Noctis sat to the side, clutching his back and waiting for his breath to level back out to normal.

_Pathetic,_ Ravus’s lesser instincts insisted. The better ones prodded at his memory. He ignored them, striking at the dummy.

A few warm-up blows, then a few simple forms. He built up to the more advanced strikes, working methodically and efficiently to wear down the dented figure. He was pleased with the progress, daring himself to keep going and try harder moves. He would show Noctis who the better of Eos’s two princes was. He would prove that he was greater than him, that Noctis was beneath him in every way, prove to himself that he was wrong to doubt his resentment of him.

Oh hubris, his old rival. It returned to humiliate him at the worse moments. He went in for an overhead strike, and something about the stretch across his shoulders disagreed with his prosthetic. The ache which had aggravated him all morning suddenly felt like a tear. He retreated immediately, dropping his sword arm to his side and flexing the metal one with a hiss through gritted teeth.

“What,” he demanded, when he felt Noctis’s eyes on him.

Ravus sliced a glare at him, daring him to make some snide comment against his abilities. The look on his face was almost worse than that. There was more sympathy in his eyes than Ravus ever wanted to see directed at himself.

“It hurts?” Noctis nodded at his arm.

“Of course it does,” Ravus snapped, twelve years of pain cackling up at him from the ache. “Not that you would know anything – “

Ravus cut himself off, looking the other way. Right. That was where his better instincts were trying to take him. They wanted to remind him that he knew why Noctis was holding his back like that. He knew exactly what frustrations he was taking out on the practice automaton. He’d tried to forget that he once sympathized with this same prince that he insisted on hating now.

Tenebrae was a place of healing, and Noctis had needed it. Badly. He never got the chance to recover with its magic entirely. Neither had Ravus.

“It’s the cold, right?”

Noctis’s voice was soft, careful, _kind._ And that made Ravus’s skin crawl more than if he had insulted him. He didn’t _want_ his sympathy, he told himself. He didn’t want to _relate_ to him. He didn’t want to get along, didn’t want to like him for any reason. He wasn’t ready to forgive him or his father for bringing Niflheim to his doorstep.

And yet, Ravus couldn’t find fault in him for living with the same pains Ravus had clutched his teeth together and bore for most of his life. He’d blamed the royal family for a lot of things, but the ache in his arm when he moved to the cold climate of Gralea he’d _always_ blamed on the Empire. Not Noctis.

Ravus pierced the rapier into the dirt beside the dummy, and sat down in the dust. So he got Niflheim’s white vestments a little dirty. _Good._ Neither he, nor Noctis, said anything. They just sat there, breathing heavy and nursing their aches. Pitiful, really. Two young men in their prime, moaning and groaning over joints flaring up in the winter like two grouchy old codgers.

Ravus could have laughed at it.

Noctis did. It was heavy with breath he was still trying to catch from the work-out. “Karma’s a bitch, that’s probably what you’re thinking. I cost you an arm, so my leg is only fair.”

Ravus stared at the scourged steel of his arm, turning the forearm left and right. He sighed through his nose. “I was thinking that the worst people, who do the worse things, never seem to feel the worst of the pain they put on others. Life isn’t fair, to put it in terms you’d understand.”

Noctis snorted, but didn’t bite at the baiting. A damn shame – Ravus might have felt better if he did. No, instead he just sat there next to him, leaning his hands back into the dirt and staring at the ruined dummy. Ravus really wanted to cut it in half. The next twinge scolded him against that idea.

“You know what actually helps?”

Ravus glanced at Noctis, eyes narrowed. He couldn’t imagine the Prince of Lucis was sitting on some miracle remedy for chronic agony, and he’d never known. Noctis smiled, soft, but secretive.

“Laying on the floor. In the parlor room upstairs. Coming with?”

Ravus’s eyes narrowed even further, surveying Noctis through a squint. That sounded juvenile and basic, but then, Noctis _was_ just that: juvenile and basic. He couldn’t expect much else from him. And he shouldn’t degrade himself by literally lowering himself to the floor…

But misery did love company, after all. And he was plenty miserable to be companionable for the both of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompted over at [tumblr!](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/181984722172/ravnoct-refusing-to-admit-pain)


	4. Home Remedy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The holidays have befallen Lucis at last. Ravus expects to give his appearance and get nothing in return. Noctis, however, is not about to let that happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some much needed fluff, filled [here](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/183338989052/ravnoct-homemade-gifts-are-for-children-and) for [Aithilin](http://aithilin.tumblr.com/)!<3

It was time.

The day of reckoning was at last upon him.

The epidemic of holiday cheer that had infected Insomnia for weeks had finally arrived to its fever-pitch conclusion. Ravus just had to sweat it out for one more night before he could safely say he’d survived the saccharine sadism of Insomnia’s seasonal obsession all month long.

The Citadel’s annual Wintertide Ball had descended upon the high towers of the Lucian King’s domain in bright, glaring glories of silver and gold. The hallowed halls were draped in long, gilded pennants sporting the Caelums’ house sigil, printed within a festive wreath of pressed silver (an almost comical failure to make the skull seal look less morbid amidst all the revelry).

Shimmering, silver bows curled around every banister, balustrade, and buffet table. Snowflakes glittered from the ballroom chandeliers on invisible strings, buoying up and down to create the illusion of falling flurries. Dark green, conical trees of varying heights and sizes cluttered the corners of the room, frosted in fake snow and dressed as elegantly as any visiting dignitary in golden baubles, glinting tinsel, and crystalline beading to cast the glittering reflections of all the lights back out onto the ballroom floor. Waltzing guests were delighted by the prismatic flutter of rainbow light beneath their feet, laughing on the libation spilling from champagne fountains and steaming bowls of mulled wine.

Lucians were loud drunks and sloppy dancers, even in their elegant, winter finery. The ballroom gaiety wasn’t anything at all like how the Empire celebrated the holidays. Niflheim didn’t like to celebrate much of anything outside of their own victories, but certain days of the year demanded observance, whether the Empire could gloat about them or not.

They were formal, grim affairs in Gralea; a bunch of scowling old men forced into the same room together in order to set a unified front for the Imperial commonwealth. No one danced like they did here in Lucis. No one laughed over inside jokes within cells of familiar faces, happy to see each other after the end of a long year. Niflheim had been a sad, steep step down from how the demur dances Ravus remembered from his youth.

Lucis – much as it embittered him to admit – was a bit more like Tenebrae, in that sense. It was a lot looser, of course – the volume of slurred voices and discordant dance shoes stomping across the floor a coarser comparison to the graceful guests of Fenestala Manor – but it was still a sweeter way to spend the holidays than in the sour silence of the Emperor’s mandatory get-togethers.

That, or his over-exposure to Lucian extravagance had finally brainwashed him into thinking any of this was even remotely enjoyable. As well as he’d been spending too much time around Prince Noctis. His under-stated appreciation for his homeland must have been rubbing off on Ravus. The man was like a virus, his subdued optimism burning up from beneath Ravus’s skin, trying to take over.

“You alright? You look a little flushed.”

Noctis had an uncanny talent for finding Ravus’s blind spot and appearing from it like a summoned shadow the instant Ravus was thinking about him. Which was… more often of late than he cared to admit.

Wine.

It was the wine making him feel warm.

Between homecoming champagne, and charity eggnog, and holiday punch, there never seemed to be a shortage of alcoholic beverages under the royal family’s roof. Maybe that was how they were doing it, manipulating his mind into thinking they were all so wonderful – the devious Lucian bastards.

“Too much punch?” Noctis teased.

It was mind-reading comments like that which made Ravus paranoid. He tried so hard not to be an open book, but Noctis just opened up the hardcover as casually as if he was browsing a library some days. Ravus really needed to stop drinking everything they gave him in this kingdom.

“I was thirsty,” Ravus said, plainly.

“Uh huh.”

Ravus glared at him, scrambling to decipher the secretive smile which had quirked up the corners of the Prince’s lips. He couldn’t figure out what had amused the man so much before Noctis was tugging on his sleeve and coaxing him out of the crowded ballroom.

If Noctis had alluded to a reason behind this impromptu kidnapping, Ravus hadn’t been able to hear him beneath the carousing cacophony of invite-only diplomats. Once they had put a few decorated hallways behind them, and the din of cheerful chatter had subsided to a mere echo, Ravus suddenly felt surprisingly sober in the silence. He _hadn’t_ imbibed too much punch, really. He’d just felt like he had by osmosis.

“Don’t be mad.”

Ravus blinked the haze of the ballroom from his eyes, sobering even more and racing to catch up with his clearing head. He regained himself just in time to be presented with a small, white cardboard box, wrapped in a silver bow.

Ravus stared, uncomprehending, even in his sobriety. He glanced up at Noctis, nervous insistence warring behind the shade of his eyes. A few weeks ago, when Ravus had brought more vengeance with him to Insomnia than diplomacy, he would have declined. But that had been before he’d stood on the sidelines of the same crowded ballroom behind them, watching the Prince of Lucis smile and exchange gifts with children rather than sly handshakes with the Lucian elite. That had been before the day he’d caught him training, and shared his uncured aches of heart and body both with the royal peer he’d conditioned himself to think of as his rival.

Ravus had come to Insomnia fearing it as a trap. He hadn’t been prepared for Noctis being the lure. He shouldn’t have accepted the bait, should have tried to struggle from this snare, but the box was in his hand before he could convince himself to run.

“You’re going to think it’s stupid,” Noctis told him. “But just humor me, okay? It might help.”

“With?”

Noctis nodded at the box, hands stuffed in his pockets, rumpling the fine, tailored black suit he was obligated to wear for the occasion. Ravus had been trying – and failing – not to notice how the jacket contoured to the slim cut of his torso. He jerked his gaze to the box and distracted himself with opening it before he could fail not to notice yet again.

Inside, atop neat folds of purple tissue paper, was the seal of House Fleuret. It was a small, hand-sewn patch, with a little screen opposite the rearing, winged unicorn. Behind said screen was a clump of dried debris, mottled in color, but largely purple in places. Ravus couldn’t for the life of him understand what it was until he drew it closer to his face to inspect.

The subtle scent which perfumed the material revealed its identity. Lavender bulbs, and dried sylleblossom petals, mixed with some sweeter herbs that he couldn’t quite place. Ravus picked up the patch from the box, careful not to tear it with the sharp magitek metal of his hand. There was a small silver pin stitched against the back of it, meant to fasten to a piece of clothing.

“It’s, um… an aromatherapy patch. For those aching winter days.”

Noctis nodded at the place where Ravus’s prosthetic melded to his shoulder. The day they’d traded a training dummy had revealed more of Ravus’s weakness to the cold than he’d wanted to show in Lucis. But it had been illuminating rather than humiliating when Noctis had shared his pains, too, laying on the floor at Noctis’s recommendation, because he foolishly seemed to think it helped with the aches.

It had. And so, too, Ravus imagined, would this.

“It doesn’t do a whole lot,” Noctis rambled, rubbing the back of his neck and refusing to look directly at Ravus. “Like, it won’t make the aches go away. But the smell is supposed to be, ah, relaxing, I guess. Takes out the tension. And sorry if the details are a little off. I’m really bad at sewing.”

Ravus blinked in surprise, staring at the disproportionate limbs of the unicorn under new context. “You made this?”

“Yeah… Listen, if you don’t think you can use it, you can throw it out. It won’t hurt my feelings, I promise.”

Something about the certainty in his own failure to please him stirred in Ravus. He should have been satisfied to see the Prince squirm, should have seized on this opportunity to destroy his self-esteem and regain some control over his own position since arriving in the city.

But all of his should-haves were for a Ravus of a different time.

This Ravus dusted off a spot on his shirt and pinned the gift in place, tucking it safely under the lapel of his jacket where it would be pressed, out of sight, against his chest. “It doesn’t fit for black-tie formal tonight,” he grumbled. “But I’ll find a use for it.”

Noctis stopped squirming then, face breaking into a smile. This time, it was Ravus’s turn to squirm. If the lavender bulbs helped ease his aching scars, they did nothing to calm the pounding of his heart. Even kept pinned right against it.


	5. Wanted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You make me want things I can't have."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Filled for a request by [fivepeepeeshouto](http://fivepeepeeshouto.tumblr.com/) over on [my tumblr!](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/184016629162/hey-i-really-liked-all-the-ravnoct-youve)

Kindness was not common currency within the borders of the Empire.

Callous indifference was considered civilized discourse in Niflheim’s upper-class society. People were regarded as inanimate pieces in a game, even to those who weren’t playing. They were statistics on screens, lines on a graph, numbers in columns stacked like a stairway for the Emperor to climb up towards his throne of world dominion.

Kindness, charity, righteousness, and honor were for children. And there were no children in the Imperial army. Ravus’s childhood had died with his mother, buried under the Lucian king’s retreating footsteps.

He’d resented Regis and envied Noctis for that. Because when the King had spirited his son to safety, he’d taken the rest of Tenebare’s innocence with him. An innocence that swaddled the remainder of the Prince’s childhood within the safety of the Citadel, while Ravus and Luna were abandoned without it, forced into the cold, calculating designs of the Empire.

He’d hated the King because he was kind, but only to his son. And he’d hated Noctis the first day he’d met him again because he seemed so unworthy of the sacrifice Ravus’s own kingdom was forced to make for his escape.

Noctis was clumsy, unkempt, uninterested in the matters of court, decorum, and all the basic tenants of how a man of royal stature should conduct himself. He didn’t wear what was in fashion, made a fool of himself in holiday headgear for the cameras documenting the annual toy drive, was reckless and without discipline or regard to his own limitations when it came to sword fighting, and was the most intuitive, crafty, and generous little brat when it came to exchanging gifts, without any incentive towards his own political gain.

Ravus had forgotten what kindness looked like. No good deed came without an ulterior motive in the Empire. One hand opened in assistance was a distraction from the other, holding a knife where he couldn’t see. Niflheim was all sleight of hand, double meanings, favors and connections and many barbed strings attached.

He’d thought Lucis would be the same. He’d thought Noctis would be duplicitous, cynical, and selfish, only out for himself; just like his father. Perhaps that was why he really hated King Regis: he was too much like himself. He’d thought Noctis would be just like him, too.

Noctis was not like him. And it had taken Ravus a very long, very cold winter to realize that wasn’t a bad thing.

“You guys will be leaving soon, huh?”

Ravus glanced up from his thoughts – and his absent-minded itemizing of the guest wardrobe. Noctis lurked in the shadow of the doorway, pressing himself into the corner of the frame. He stood with the toe of one boot propped behind the heel of the other, favoring his better leg. Ravus wondered if the dry, January weather was making his scars ache as much as Ravus’s were.

“Tenebrae can survive a great deal on its own,” Ravus said. “But I’d prefer not to leave it without proper leadership for too long.”

The peace passed by the Empire had gone without a single drawback for long enough that all the treaties had been signed and hands shaken to prove that they weren’t going back on their word. Nevertheless, Ravus couldn’t shake the suspicions borne from an entire lifetime spent underneath Imperial domination and deceit quite so quickly. While the holiday season spent in Lucis had been – dare he admit it – not entirely horrible, it would put his mind at ease to be back home in Tenebrae, where he could see for himself whether or not the peace was being honored.

“I understand.” Noctis nodded, eyes on their reflections in the lacquered floor. “Get homesick after a while, right?”

“Quite.”

He hadn’t arranged any travel plans yet, nor announced an expected date for departure (he hadn’t even discussed returning home with Luna yet), but Noctis seemed to have an uncanny, borderline telepathic sense for Ravus’s thoughts. It disturbed him, and – when he dared to surrender to the idea – excited him, as well. It had worried him at first, thinking that, if his intentions could be read so easily by a foolish prince, what other, more malevolent figures might be able to exploit his unintentional openness?

But it wasn’t him that revealed too much of himself to prying eyes. It was just Noctis’s way. Much as he pretended like he didn’t pay attention, Noctis saw many things that other people missed. While his esteemed counterparts looked at the big picture, Noctis picked out the smaller details.

He saw that Ravus was out of place in a holiday gathering and made sure he had a glass of eggnog to ease his nerves and fit in. He saw that the joints where Ravus’s shoulder met his prosthetic ached when it got cold, so he made him a gift of lavender fused to his house seal to ease his pain and bring him comfort.

Ravus couldn’t remember the last time someone saw his needs before he himself had even noticed them. It was hard to admit that he actually _wanted_ someone to notice in the first place. Let alone that he didn’t mind that someone being Noctis.

“It’ll be spring before you know it,” Noctis mused, absently tapping his toe against the floor. “I remember Tenebrae being nice in the spring.”

“Tenebrae is _resplendent_ in the spring,” Ravus corrected.

“Yeah, I bet,” Noctis chuckled. “Spring’s not so bad in Insomnia, but I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say it’s ‘resplendent.’”

Ravus snorted at the mockery. He’d come to learn that it was never done in malice, unlike the sneering condemnations of the Niflheim elite. Prayers he usually left up to Luna, but right now, Ravus threw up a little prayer himself that those same Nifs wouldn’t be waiting for him at Fenestala Manor when he returned.

“Luna may linger in Lucis longer than I,” he said. “One Fleuret in Tenebrae should suffice.”

“Ah. That’s good. She can stay as long as she likes, we love having her around… Same goes for you. I mean, no check-out date or anything. If you want.”

He did want. That was part of the problem – if he could call it a problem. Maybe his initial fears had been realized and prolonged exposure to the Lucian climate had brainwashed him into believing Noctis was more palatable company than he really was. Maybe there was something in that gift he’d given him, some hallucinogenic vapor masquerading as aromatherapy that was messing with his better reasoning. Whatever the case, as much as Ravus wanted to return home, he found he didn’t want to leave Insomnia nearly as badly.

“Be careful with your invitations,” Ravus said, struggling to sound like he was teasing. “You make me want things I can’t have.”

He paused, frowning at the buttons of a coat he was rifling through in the wardrobe. That hadn’t come out quite right. That sounded less like a jest and more like… a confession. He shot a quick glance at Noctis, hoping he hadn’t interpreted it as such. But the Prince’s eyes had finally lifted up to him, brow creased in quiet contemplation. Ravus shut the wardrobe and moved to the desk, trying to find something that would make it look like he was busy and needed Noctis to go away.

There was nothing. He knew that and Noctis knew that. Ravus, with his back turned to the door, heard Noctis shift, and his ill-rhythmed steps slowly slid across the floor towards him. Panic rushed up Ravus’s neck as they grew closer, as if he were caught in a falxfang’s den, waiting for its hooked tusks to latch into his heart and rip it out of his chest.

“If you want something, you can have it.” Noctis melted up to his side, cautious and careful. His hand was dangerously close to brushing against Ravus’s claws. “You just have to ask.”

All that Ravus had ever wanted, had been impossible to have. He’d wanted his kingdom to be free and for Luna to be happy. And while those things made him feel a little easier, he’d wanted them less for himself than he’d wanted them for everyone else. He would have been content with that.

But here he was, with the whisper of Noct’s fingertips against the magitek which had cursed him into being an Imperial puppet. Here he was, under the banners of peace, after everything he’d taught himself to know about Lucis and its prince had shifted out of focus.

And he found himself wanting the last thing he ever expected he would.

The second he turned and kissed Noctis, Ravus told himself he hadn’t meant to. He told himself that, somehow, it was an accident. An act of madness. It wasn’t something he really wanted.

But as Noct’s small sound of surprise muffled itself beneath his lips, and the warmth of the Prince’s mouth relented to him, Ravus knew he was just lying to himself. He wanted this. He knew he couldn’t have it, _shouldn’t_ , but it was too late to give it back.

Noctis sunk against him, closer than Ravus should have ever let him get. His lips were hot and sweet, breath fresh, and the perfume of lavender from his Wintertide present curled up between them from beneath Ravus’s jacket, where he’d kept the patch pinned above his heart.

He didn’t want to leave. And he didn’t want to stop. Perhaps, after all those years of being denied everything he truly wanted, he could finally have something that was just his.

With the way Noctis opened up to him, pressed closer so he could take whatever he wanted to have, it felt like a promise that he could keep it. Just for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is everyone else as happy as I am that they finally kissed? Because I'm really happy that they finally kissed. I didn't even know they were going kiss!


End file.
